Still There
by Dragonfly and K-chan
Summary: Shino, during and after a mission gone horribly wrong. KChan


A/N: I felt like writing something sad and morbid, and I thought of this.

Disclamer: Don't own Naruto; it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

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If there was one thing that Shino hated, it was this. This scene that was displayed for him, in all its morbid glory. For a moment, he wanted to make himself believe it was a genjutsu. But no, Shino couldn't believe it was a genjutsu. Not even for that moment. Shino was never good at playing make believe.

Judging by the looks of things (he didn't want to look but he couldn't look away), Kurenai went first. Her body was so _pale_; much paler than normal. But that made sense, considering all the damn blood surrounding her body. Her eyes were wide-open, crimson eyes, just like her blood. The wound tearing down her back was so wide, and Shino tried not to see the bone and muscle, but it was just there, and he couldn't just ignore it. He wonders, for a second, how Asuma will take it. Then he decides that he doesn't want to know. Shino walked on.

He sees a dead enemy, and as he walks by the body, he methodically crushes its skull.

The next body he found was Hinata's. It almost made him choke, to see what they had done to her. Sweet, gentle Hinata, who always tried to improve herself, make herself stronger. The head barely looks attached to the body, and there's a kunai lodged in her chest. The kunai was probably just to make her weak enough so that they could- no. No, Shino doesn't want to know whether or not they stabbed or beheaded her first. Goddamnit he doesn't want to know!

Shino feels his insides twist, and he falls to his knees, gagging. He'd seen this before, seen all the violent methods used by and on shinobi, but it had never been his teammates. And he realizes, with a growing sense of fear and apprehension, that he has yet to see Kiba. So he gets up and continues walking, trying not to think about how Hinata never got to tell Naruto that she loved him, and that now she never will.

He hears a small, whimpering bark, and instantly recognizes it as Akamaru. Then he hears a hacking noise, and realizes that it's Kiba. Kiba's still alive.

So he runs this time, and he sees Kiba leaning against a tree, gasping and hacking and bleeding. He's surrounded by enemy nin, all dead. He looks at Shino, and Shino can see, even in the dark, that his left eye is missing. Shino runs over to him, and all the while he is praying, praying to whatever god is listening, _don't let him die_.

He grabs Kiba and stops him from falling, and Kiba's still breathing. Kiba's empty eye socket still has blood streaming down it, and he can barely talk. There are at least 9 shuriken, all scattered over his body, and two kunai, one in his shoulder, another in his side. Shino doesn't know any medical jutsus.

"Shi…no…Hinata is…dead." He hacks up more blood, and Shino is too horrified to look away.

"Kiba…don't…" But Kiba shakes his head, still hacking.

"Gonna die…sorry…always called…bugfreak…sorry…" Normally, Shino wouldn't acknowledge this. But normally, Kiba wasn't dying, and normally, he wouldn't be apologizing.

"It's okay," Shino murmurs quietly. Kiba manages to smile, and Shino can't distinguish where the blood ends and Kiba begins. The blood that trails out of his mouth just makes it worse.

"Good...tell Hana...mom...sorry, will ya...?" Shino nods, and he hopes that Kiba can see his nod, because he can't speak, or else he'd choke.

"Thanks...you're...good friend, Shino..." His breathing became harsher than before, and Shino could feel the life leaving his teammate. Kiba slumped over in his arms, and Akamaru let out a howl. Shino felt tears gathering in his eyes, and he held on to Kiba's body and began sobbing. He couldn't do anything else.

Kiba was wrong. If he really was a good friend, he wouldn't have let everyone die. He would've saved them, somehow...

Akamaru looks at Shino, nuzzling his leg, and Shino has a feeling that on the inside, Akamaru was crying. Shino lifts Kiba's body and carries it towards Hinata's, pointedly trying not to look at her. Then he went to pick up his sensei's, bringing her back and laying her next to Kiba's and Hinata's. Akamaru whines the whole time, refusing to go anywhere besides where his master was.

Shino sank to his knees before his broken team, his sunglasses falling off his nose. Hinata had once said that Shino had nice eyes.

It's not long before another team comes along; it's Team 7. Sakura noticed them first, and she screamed. Shino thinks she probably fainted. He heard Sasuke's horror-struck voice yelling, and Shino's sure that he's trying to call Naruto back. Naruto's reaction made Shino wince. He was gasping at first, and then he was screaming. But he didn't faint like Sakura did. His screams were incoherent mixtures of swears, Hinata's name, and fragmented questioning. Shino couldn't speak at all. Kakashi tried to tell Naruto to stop, but the shaking in the jounin's voice was something that Shino could hear clearly, and he knew that this had probably shocked him just as much as the others.

"Shino, Shino, what the fuck happened here! Who did this, who the hell killed Hinata and Kiba! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!" Shino's sure that Naruto didn't mean it the way it sounded, but even if he did, he wouldn't blame him. Why was he still here? Why wasn't he dead, like his sensei and his friends? He should be, but he isn't. It was like some cruel, twisted joke; Shino was the pun.

"Naruto, stop!" Sasuke's voice sounded strange, like he was afraid. Shino couldn't bring himself to move when Kakashi asked him to; there was so much blood. Everywhere, all he could see was blood, and it hurt him so much that he wanted to die. The man he'd fought had happened to be weak, or at least weaker than the others, so Shino had told the rest to go ahead, and Kurenai had agreed with him and went. So really, it's all his fault; so really, he's the one who should be dead. He grabs a kunai without a second thought, and brings it down hard on his wrist, creating a cut so deep that it almost slices off his wrist, just like Hinata's…

Naruto gasped, and Sasuke yelled, and Shino felt dizzy. Sasuke- or was it Kakashi?- said to hurry and wake Sakura up. Shino collapsed, thinking about what he'd promised to do for Kiba. _I'm_ _sorry_, he thinks.

When he wakes up, nearly a week later, he wonders, yet again, why he didn't die. Everyone came to visit him, and he didn't speak to any of them, not even his own parents. But when the two Inuzuka females come along, both of them in such a disastrous state that Shino wonders how they got out of the house, he does say something.

"Kiba said he's sorry." His voice is horse and dry, and Tsume nods, tears streaming down her cheeks. Hana hugs him and sobs that it's not his fault, and that she's sorry that it happened, and _why was it her little brother_? Shino doesn't respond, because he doesn't know how. He wishes he could tell her that it _is_ his fault, but his voice refuses to work again. Before they leave, Tsume says in a hushed tone that the funeral for all three people will be in a week. Shino nods, and they leave. He has a week left to live.

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When he sees Naruto at the funeral, he says to him, in a quiet voice, "She loved you." Unfinished business was a bad thing for the dead, so Shino figures that he could finish this for Hinata. Naruto looks at him, blue eyes wide, and then he nods.

"Makes sense," he says quietly.

"I'm sorry." Naruto looks confused.

"You didn't do anything."

"Exactly." Naruto still looks confused after Shino walks away, and once he's far enough, Shino closes his eyes and performs Kage Bunshin. He only makes one copy of himself, and he tells that copy to go back to the funeral. Shino doesn't want anyone to interrupt him this time, and he doesn't want anyone to save him. He finished it, finished what he needed to tell the others, and paid his last respects to his friends. He's sure it was the last time he would ever talk to them, because they're somewhere up in heaven right now, and he knows he's not going there.

They don't let murderers in heaven.


End file.
